Till The Tree Could Bear No More
by Skysalla
Summary: Missing scene for 4.16 On the Head of a Pin - Sam had known Dean wasn't strong enough.


Author's Note:

Set in season 4 - general spoils.

Thanks to Jenn1984 for her mad beta skills. and to Littlefairy for her awesomeness.

I own nothing.

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He had known Dean wasn't strong enough.

He could see it in his brother's eyes ever since his return. Could hear it in his brother's cries every time Dean slept. He had seen it in the shuddering sobs during his brother's confession of Hell.

Hell had taken something away from Dean, something Sam wasn't sure he would be able to get back.

He hadn't meant to call his brother weak, to make Dean think he was holding Sam back from reaching his true potential. But Dean had been broken. He _was_ weaker. He tried to cover it up, but more and more Sam was able to see through his brother's devil may care attitude. It was all a cover, and it was spread thin.

He'd seen the look in Dean's eyes before the angels had taken him. The fear that Dean rarely allowed to breach the high security walls he kept it locked behind. After years of hunting with his brother, Sam knew that fear rarely escaped Dean's safeguards. He knew it meant his brother had been terrified.

And that is how he had known Dean wasn't strong enough.

He watched Alastair collapse to the ground, the eyes locked open in an expression of horror at the realization of Sam's powers. He turned away as the body thumped to the ground, only to find himself faced with a similar shock in the eyes of an angel. Castiel did not move from the post, his piercing blue eyes merely gazing quietly upon Sam.

But Sam did not hold the gaze for long. Instead he turned aside, he had to find Dean. He had hoped Dean would have resisted, told the Angels to 'stick it where the sun don't shine' before walking out on them. But when his eyes fell upon the still form of his brother at the base of the broken devil's trap, he knew Dean hadn't been able to refuse.

His brother, the man who had gone through thirty years of torture at the hands of a demon, collapsed under the pressures of an angel in a single afternoon

Sam had been praying to God for years, right up until that fateful day when his brother had been taken from him. After that he didn't think God existed, and if he did, he sure as heck didn't care about the Winchesters.

When Dean came back, his belief had been reinstated. He thanked God in prayer every day for two months. God himself had sent an angel to save his brother.

But now, as he looked down at his broken brother, it was hard to say if the angels were any better than the demons.

Sam couldn't stop himself from shaking as he dropped to his knees at his brother's side. Dean wasn't moving, his face already starting to swell from the abuse it had endured.

Sam's nostrils flared as he threw a glare at the bloodied corpse of Alastair. If he could do it again, the demon would have suffered more.

He turned his face back to Dean and hesitantly pressed two fingers against his brother's neck, the feeble pulse was only weakly reassuring.

"God, Dean."

He gently maneuvered Dean to lie on his back, the simple task almost taking more energy then he had. He didn't look good, and Sam wasn't sure where to start. Most of the damage seemed to be localized to Dean's face, damage Sam wasn't sure was treatable, at least not by Winchester M.D.

"Dean-"

It was only then that Sam noticed the blue tint that was starting to spread across Dean's face, Dean wasn't breathing.

"DEAN!"

He pulled his brother's mouth open, but nothing was visibly obstructing Dean's airway. He fumbled for his cell phone as he repositioned himself over Dean to begin CPR.

The operator answered quickly, but before Sam had a chance to scream into the receiver his need for an ambulance, he found Dean and himself suddenly outside a hospital.

With a surge of adrenaline, he scooped up his brother's body and staggered to his feet. The few people surrounding the entrance to the ER parted as he tore through the doors.

"I need a doctor! NOW!"

The John Winchester tone he added to his voice seemed to have the added affect, as a slew of people dressed in scrubs scurried to his side. He lowered his brother onto the gurney they brought with them, the flurry of nurses, doctors and orderlies forcing him away from Dean's side as they worked.

Hopelessly he watched as they intubated his shattered brother and wheeled him behind the swinging double doors.

He hated those doors.

`-`-`

It was hours before he was allowed to see Dean. Hours of pacing in the small waiting room, hours of listening to the crying of a colicky baby and the muted shouts of orders coming from behind the closed doors.

He couldn't remember what name he'd put down on the paperwork. Couldn't remember anything but the sight of Dean being whisked away from him intermixed with the haunting memories of a hellhound-slashed corpse.

"Mr. Murphy?"

He jerked his head up, wondering what Pastor Jim was doing the hospital of whatever town this was. But Jim was dead. Everyone they loved was dead.

"Sam Murphy?" The mousy little intern scans the room before checking his chart again. "Family of Dean Murphy?"

Sam stood, something in the back of his mind reminding him who he was pretending to be. He acknowledged the intern, and followed the small man in a daze. Some of the words made it through to him: strangulation, head trauma, collapsed lung. But all he really heard was: damage, broken, hurt.

The man stopped, letting Sam slide past him into the small room where a machine breathes for his broken brother. The brother Sam failed to protect.

He may be stronger now, but if he couldn't protect his own brother, the man who had practically raised him, what good was his power? He couldn't do anything when everyone was out to get them, he couldn't protect him against demons and angels.

He heard the shuffle of wings, and footsteps as they crossed the doorway behind him. It was time the angels did something for them for a change. They might have pulled Dean from Hell, but they hadn't done a damn thing to truly help him. And they needed to, because Sam wasn't sure he could do anything for Dean.

He had known Dean wasn't strong enough. But he also knew he wasn't strong enough to be the older brother.


End file.
